Direct Mail is still relevant in the age of Social Media and E-Mail Marketing

In the age of social media, and e-mail marketing, you may be surprised to find that direct mail still proves to be amongst the most effective use of your marketing or fundraising budget. While the web is a great source for dynamic information and instant gratification, receiving a piece of direct mail is a more tangible experience.

Many of your recipients will prefer direct mail and print marketing over digital. With the proliferation of e-mail marketing, e-mail boxes are getting more crowded, while physical mail boxes are becoming less so. With less mail hitting these physical mail boxes comes less competition for the recipients attention. And while e-mail can be discarded with a click of the button, or filtered directly to a spam folder, your mail piece has to have at least been placed in the recipients hand and glanced at before hitting the recycle bin.

Response rates for direct mail marketing hover at around 3.4% while e-mail marketing response rates  land at a much more modest 0.12%. Admittedly direct mail marketing is a more expensive process - therefore e-mail marketing has a higher return on investment on average. A lot of marketers use this as an excuse to do so called "spray and pray" email blasts where they send generic emails to large numbers of email addresses and hope their message gets out enough to generate a decent response.

There is a better way. The most successful marketing campaigns are integrated, or multi-channel campaigns. These campaigns use aspects of direct mail, e-mail and social media combined. Perhaps you start with a highly targeted direct mail piece, one that is tailored towards the recipients interests. Along with the piece is a traditional return device to order a product, sign up for your service, or to donate to your cause. Along with this traditional return piece, there is also a QR Code or Personalized URL (PURL) which leads to a landing page for the recipient to sign up, purchase or donate. This web site can also serve as a source to gather more information from the recipient such as their e-mail address. It can also serve as an easy way to get them to follow you on twitter, or like you on facebook. This will allow you to communicate with them on a more regular basis, keeping you in front of mind when they are ready to purchase or donate.

Maybe your initial direct mail didn't get you an immediate response - but it was a first touch. It's been said that to make a sale, unless it was an impulse buy, you will need to "touch" the buyer several times. Maybe your next step would be a follow-up mailing, e-mail or even a phone call. If you managed to get the recipient to follow you on a social channel, sharing content relevant to your target markets interests will also keep your company in mind, and be considered a "light touch". According to the ‘Rule of Seven,’ formulated by marketing expert Dr. Jeffrey Lant, to penetrate the buyer’s consciousness and make significant penetration in a given market, you have to contact the prospect a minimum of seven times within an 18-month period.

To find out how Movad can help with your next campaign, click the button below.

The USPS Saturday Mail Delivery Saga Continues

According to his blog post "Sanders to Postmaster General: Postal Service Must Keep Saturday Mail" U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) yesterday called on Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to withdraw his plan to stop Saturday mail delivery.

In the blog he stated that "the opinion by the non-partisan GAO unambiguously declared that the Postal Service has no legal authority to end Saturday mail without the approval of Congress. In fact, Congress just last week passed a bill that restated the requirement for the Postal Service to maintain Saturday mail delivery."

In a letter addressed to the Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, Senator Bernie Sanders encouraged  Mr. Donahoe to clear up any confusion on this topic. "Therefore, I am urging you to make it clear to the American people that the USPS will continue Saturday mail delivery in adherence with the law as soon as possible."

He goes on to explain that he understands that much of the financial shortcomings that the post-office has faced since 2007 can be attributed to the Congressional mandate that the post office pre-fund 75 years of future retiree benefits over a 10 year period; something that no other government agency, nor any other corporation in America is mandated to do. "Before this pre-funding mandate was signed into law by President George W. Bush, the Postal Service was making a profit. In fact, from 2003 through 2006, the postal service made combined profit of more than $9 billion." Senator Sanders continues "I look forward to working with you to end this onerous mandate once and for all which would keep the Postal Service healthy and thriving for years to come."

Also mentioned is the fact that a law passed in 2006 banned the Postal Service from expanding its services with new and innovative products and other offerings. Such innovations could aid the Postal Service to increase much needed revenue, and compete with other shippers such as FedEx and UPS.

What is your opinion, is this the right move? Do you prefer the post office revert to the normal 6 day delivery plan? Will the government follow through with Senator Sanders' suggestion to remove the pre-funding mandate? Will that be enough, or do you feel the Postal Service would be better off by continuing with the 5 day delivery plan in addition to the mandate? Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Saturday Delivery or no Saturday Delivery?

In early February, I blogged about The United States Postal Service's transition to a 5 day delivery schedule, and how will it affect you? This blog detailed The Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe's decision to end Saturday door to door delivery of letters in an effort to generate approximately $2 billion of annual cost savings. But as of now, it's uncertain whether his plan will go into effect or not.

A recent poll by IPSOS, an independent market research firm, indicates that 80% of Americans support the revised delivery schedule put forth in Patrick Donohoe's Plan. Despite this fact, the spending bill passed in March by the House of Representatives includes a provision held in place for the last 30 years which requires the USPS to maintain services at not less than 1983 levels.

However, according to the Congressional Research Service report, nothing specifically requires the Postal Service to deliver mail on Saturdays.

“Nothing in Title 39 of the U.S. Code (which holds most federal postal law) requires the USPS to deliver mail six days per week. However, since 1984 Congress has included a provision in its annual appropriation to the USPS stating that ‘6-day delivery and rural delivery of mail shall continue at not less than the 1983 level’” can be found on page 13 of the report.

Whether this will really hold up the plan is up in the air. Most lawmakers agree that the bill passed in the House of Representatives, and a similar bill expected to pass the senate, which includes the same words will allow for the US Postal Service to move forward with their 5 day delivery plan. They indicate that the continued delivery of packages on Saturday is enough to satisfy these requirements. Others believe differently “The language is clear,” said Rep. Jose Serrano (D., N.Y.). “They can’t put these changes to Saturday mail into effect.”

Regardless of whether this move is approved or not, the US Postal Service could ignore any rulings against the move - thereby forgoing $100 million in federal funding annually. But when you take a look at the approximate $2 billion in savings that would be a small price to pay.

What is your take on this? If the USPS stops delivering letters on Saturday, do you think it will affect you? Do you support this plan? Do you think the plan will go through? Let me know what you think in the comments below.

Direct mail to the deceased - a marketing and fundraising nightmare ...

When a family member passes away, one of the last things that a spouse or other relative who was left behind wants to deal with is receiving direct mail addressed to the recently deceased. The United States Post Office will continue delivering mail to the deceased until they are officially notified that delivery is to cease. This requires a grieving family member visit the post office with a legal death certificate. There have been instances where a deceased person has continued receiving mail several years after their passing.

You can wait until the post office is notified of the passing and stops mailing to the deceased. Or you can wait until you receive a request from the family of the deceased to remove them from your mailing list.  But the last thing a fundraiser or marketer wants to do is cause further pain on the family of a previous donor, or customer. Nothing is more embarrassing or insensitive - especially when paired with slogans such as "Donate now to save a life", or "Act now for a once in a lifetime opportunity!".

Many of you may know of the passing of Dennis McCloskey in May of 2012, Movad's owner. Dennis' wife and partner is now the President of Movad. She recently received a direct mail piece personalized to Dennis from a large organization. In the piece they included a box with a real cork, and a letter which included phrases such as "we want to help you celebrate a new phase of your business or personal life with a toast to what's next", and "Visit (personalized web address) to learn more about how we can help you live the life you deserve." She relayed to me how much the letter had upset her, and how she's been trying to reach out to the Executive Director to inform him of his blunder.

What's the alternative to this, how can you avoid this terrible situation?

By being proactive with your mailing practices and using a deceased mailing suppression service which will either flag your mailing list with a deceased field in the data, or by removing the recipient completely from the list. These databases are updated on a monthly basis, and the process begins once a death is reported to the Social Security Administration. The processing may take a few months before all of the deceased suppression databases have been updated. While no service can guarantee 100% suppression - a vast majority of the deceased recipients will be caught by using such a service. Besides the benefit of avoiding an insensitive message to the family, depending on the size of your mail lists and how clean you have kept it, this may also save you money in printing and postage.

Along with deceased mailing suppression, you may want to consider further cleansing of your mail list which includes DMA Suppression - this stops mailing to recipients who have signed up for the national DMA Do-Not-Mail list. You could also use a suppression suite which cleanses both DMA mail preference, deceased suppression, and also includes prison, trailer park, and nursing home suppression as well. While you may not wish to run your entire list against this kind of suppression, you may want to consider this for people you have never contacted before - such as an acquisition list, or a list you recently purchased.

Maintaining your data, and keeping it clean is a responsibility you should not take lightly. A mistake such as those described above can cause pain to a previous donor's family, and prevent future donations or purchases. Movad offers the services mentioned in this blog, and we welcome the opportunity to work with you. Whether or not you use our services, we highly recommend that you recognize the importance of this suppression and look into this now.

Do you have questions about this service, or do you have a similar story to share? Let us know in the comments below. You can also reach us through our contact us page, or call us at 215.638.2679. And please feel free to share this blog with your colleagues - the more who know that these services exist the better!

The United States Postal Service's transition to a 5 day delivery schedule, and how will it affect you?

In an effort to generate an approximate $2 billion of annual cost savings, on February 6th, 2013, The United States Postal Service announced plans to transition to a five day delivery schedule for mail delivery - Monday through Friday, however packages and mail sent to PO Boxes will continue to be delivered on Saturday. This change in delivery schedule is set to begin in August of this year.

“The Postal Service is advancing an important new approach to delivery that reflects the strong growth of our package business and responds to the financial realities resulting from America’s changing mailing habits,” said Patrick R. Donahoe, Postmaster General and CEO. “We developed this approach by working with our customers to understand their delivery needs and by identifying creative ways to generate significant cost savings.”

But what impact will this have on Direct Mail that you send? With one less day of mail delivery in the week, there is likely to be a slight increase of pieces of mail each household receives in a day. And with those additional pieces comes additional competition for the recipients attention. The more appealing your piece is at first glance, the more likely it will be opened.

You may also want to rethink the day your mailings drop at the post office. It's unknown whether the bulk of this additional mail that would normally be delivered on Saturday will just shift to a Monday delivery, however, bulk mail will still be processed, but not delivered on Saturdays, so that will most likely be the case.

But the only sure thing is that you will need to continue to be creative with your pieces. Make your mailing stand out from every other piece, and it will have a better chance of being opened.

What do you think, will this change in delivery affect you? Please leave a comment and let us know.

If you need help getting your next mailing opened, feel free to visit us on the web at www.movadcorp.com, or call us at 215.638.2679.

Intelligent Mail Barcode - are you ready?

You probably have noticed a change in the barcodes on the mail you receive. Some have the Postnet Barcode that has been in use the last few years, and some have the new Intelligent Mail Barcode. The change over from Postnet Barcode to the Intelligent Mail Barcode was supposed to occur May 11, 2011; but the Post Office has postponed this deadline. The new deadline is this Sunday, January 27, 2013. This postponement also applied to Business Reply Mail, any Business Reply Envelope that go out after January 27th with the old style barcode will be charged a postal penalty. The latest information from the Post Office may move from a mandated approach to a value-based approach regarding this barcode technology.

The advantages of the Intelligent Mail Barcode is that one barcode is used for First-Class Mail, Standard Mail, Periodicals, Bound Printed Matter, Business Reply Mail, Priority Mail, and Delivery Conformation. It also gives the Post Office greater ability to track mail. And with the possibility of the Post Office going to a value-based approach there may be monetary advantages to using Intelligent Mail Barcode

The Intelligent Mail Barcode is a 4-state barcode meaning there are 4 different bars. A full bar, a tracker bar, an ascender bar and a descender bar as shown below.

 

The Intelligent Mail Barcode consists of a Tracking Code and a Routing Code. The tracking Code is made up of a 2 digit Barcode Identifier (Optional Endorsement Line Description), a 3 digit Service Type Identifier (Mail Class Description), 6 or 9 digit Mailer ID (ID number unique to the mailer, and a 6 or 9 digit serial number. The Routing Code is the Delivery Point Zip Code 0, 5, 9, or 11 digits.

Have you prepared for this change - have you updated your Business Reply Envelopes?

Movad constantly keeps up with the changes with postal regulations to ensure that our clients receive the best postal discounts available to them. Want to learn more? Feel free to visit us at www.movadcorp.com or call us at 215.638.2679.